He only is Who ever was; The All-measuring Mind; the Will Supreme. Rocks, mountains, worlds, like bubbles pass: God is; the things not God but seem. {104} _Foederis Arca._ XVII. From end to end, O God, Thy Will With swift yet ordered might doth reach: Thy purposes their scope fulfil In sequence, resting each on each. In Thee is nothing sudden; nought From harmony and law that swerves: The orbits of Thine act and thought In soft succession wind their curves. O then with what a gradual care Must thou have shaped that sacred shrine, That Ark of grace, ordained to bear The burthen of the Babe divine! How many a gift within her breast Lay stored, for Him a couch to strew! How many a virtue lined His nest! How many a grace beside Him grew! Of love on love what sweet excess! How deep a faith! a hope how high!-- Mary! on earth of thee we guess; But we shall see thee when we die! {105} _Domus Aurea._ XVIII. She mused upon the Saints of old; Their toils, their pains, she longed to share Of Him she mused, the Child foretold; To Him her hands she stretched in prayer. No moment passed without its crown; And each new grace was used so well It drew some tenfold talent down, Some miracle on miracle. O golden House! O boundless store Of wealth by heavenly commerce won! When God Himself could give no more, He gave thee all; He gave His Son! Blessed the Mother of her Lord! And yet for this more blessed still, Because she heard and kept His Word-- High servant of His sovereign Will! {106} _Respexit Humilitatem._ XIX Not all thy purity, although The whitest moon that ever lit The peaks of Lebanonian snow Shone dusk and dim compared with it;-- Not that great love of thine, whose beams Transcended in their virtuous heat Those suns which melt the ice-bound streams, And make earth's pulses newly beat:-- It was not these that from the sky Drew down to thee the Eternal Word: He looked on thy humility; He knew thee, "Handmaid of thy Lord." Let no one claim with thee a part; Let no one, Mary, name thy name, While, aping God, upon his heart Pride sits, a demon robed in flame. Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place Be Sin's familiar self-disgust. Proud Virtues, doubly die; that Grace At last may burgeon from your dust. {107} _Respexit Humilitatem._ XX. Supreme among the things create Omnipotence revealed below, More swift than thought, more strong than fate, Such, such, Humility, art thou! All strength beside is weakness. Might Belongs to God: and they alone, Self-emptied souls and seeming-slight, Are filled with God and share his throne. O Mary! strong wert thou and meek; Thy meekness gave thee strength divine: Thyself in nothing didst thou seek; Therefore thy Maker made Him thine.